(epiphany)
A long time ago Harry knew a boy. Not by choice but by happenstance. Their first meeting was not auspicious at all, though how it ended set the precedent for the encounters to come.
Many vicious arguments were had that had him and this boy fighting constantly and relentlessly. Fighting in times of peace and times that best be not remembered. Through happy and sad and traumatising and victorious moments. Many explosions occurred and not all of them were caused by him.
He was a very peculiar boy, a very proper boy, this boy that Harry knew a long time ago.
Very traditional, with a biting wit that could make him laugh even though he cursed his continued existence. It was a very exciting time, even by his standards; especially considering the fact he ended up speaking up for the boy — man, now — after everything was said and done.
Harry Potter supporting a Death Eater? He couldn’t even blame that on Voldemort or the Imperious Curse.
In spite of that, in spite of everything they went through, it didn’t come as a great surprise to wake up one day and find this man gone. No longer in his peripheral vision, or mocking his face; Harry knew enough of the boy — man — he had been fighting with for years to know that the constant stares and pressure had finally become too much for him.
It was both harder and easier than he thought it would be to get back to a life without him, to sweep their eventful years, riddled with arguments and fights, under the rug.
He spent less and less time thinking about this boy he once knew — though never truly forgot — until the day he met him again.
Out of the shadows of the crowded market place Harry sees the striking figure who remains much the same and still not at all.
And as he watches Draco Malfoy heal a fallen little girl’s knee, Harry knows; he never truly knew that boy at all.
(E p i p h a n y)
a moment of sudden revelation or realisation